• by Mark Naples , March 18, 2005

There have been some very strong commentaries published in MediaPost this week, with two bylines standing out above and beyond. These two are Jeff Einstein's "Be Careful What You Ask For" on Wednesday, and Jim Meskauskas' "Remember the People" in yesterday's Online Spin.

Taken together, these pieces can be seen as bookends. Einstein wrote from an agency-centric perspective, and cautioned against ever-increasing adherence to return on investment (ROI) considerations against a backdrop of diminished creative expectations (and ultimately diminished product). His byline spoke eloquently to the challenges of this industry today, especially in interactive.

Meskauskas' consumer-centric view appropriately depicted consumers as on the run from marketers as a whole, with new means of avoiding marketing messages seemingly at every turn.

Both of these writers asserted what are, to me, unassailable positions. What's interesting is how they both arrived at the same place but from opposite ends.

From Einstein's perspective, the creative arms of agencies are increasingly kept from the decision-making table because ROI concerns rule the day. This hurts the advertising product - both in the long term and in the short term. From Meskauskas' perspective, consumers deserve a better experience from marketers. As he wrote, "Marketers and advertisers need to start thinking about actually providing a benefit to the audiences it claims to serve rather than assuming that is what advertising does."

Almost everyone reading this column is, in one way or another, in the marketing industry. (Those of you in the media industry who think you are not in the marketing industry are welcome to write me an e-mail so we can argue about the role of media in the marketing mix.)

We have all come to our careers from different sources, but most of us would agree that what we do is more creative and fun than many other jobs out there. Part of that fun, at least for many people that I talk to, is driving results for clients. Part of the fun also resides in the creative element of our work.

Maybe that's why the conflict that both Einstein and Meskauskas wrote about exists today. The reason that marketing on the Web has grown so much is mostly about providing results for the people paying the freight - and proving those results. This is the "magic" of search, of course. It upends the usual media mix, and demonstrates ROI as clear as day while doing so without a whole lot of creativity. Sure, there are creative elements to making a search work for clients. But, that is a very different kind of "creative" than the kind at work in most agencies.

There are remedies to the situation both these writers describe - remedies that we're seeing grow on the Web, right before our eyes. Behavioral marketing is the closest thing we have to the initial promise of the Web, targeting the super-segmented audience by their self-selected preference at just the right time. Behavioral marketing married to e-mail pushes the envelope further still, and the announcement this week that open rates are going up may be a harbinger of more deals between e-mail providers and behavioral marketers.

I keep thinking about Meskauskas' line, that marketing is in trouble, which I used as my headline. I do think that marketing - the way marketing has usually taken place - is indeed in trouble. But, I think that there is a pretty good chance that someone reading this will have an opportunity to change that. The frontier for marketers remains on the Web, or at least in the digital world. So, get back to work - and as you think about pleasing your client with good results, think about how your marketing product expresses that client's brand to its consumers and customers. How much care goes into the expression of the client's brand where you work? Or, is all you do about driving the top line revenue and clicks?

If all we do is just think more about that, it'll be a start.